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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   29602 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 2, 2023

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Thier interests are aligned, and thus so are their policies.

But we can simply observe that they are not aligned on an enormous range of issues. Look at the voting relationships here in the 113th Congress. The most progressive Democrats have almost non-existent cross-over with moderate Republicans, even more so for 'ordinary' (i.e. not unusually moderate) 'business' Republicans. Sanders shared essentially no votes with any Republican except Collins and Murkowski (if I'm looking at the thing right) and it's pretty much the same story with every 'progressive' Senator, even some with no particular reputation as being on the left of the party. It's true of Feinstein, Schumer, Stabenow, Murphy etc. etc. Conversely, Sessions has almost no shared votes with pretty much any Democrat. I can't find the equivalent diagram for more recent years, but I see no reason to believe there has been any convergence between the 'patrician' wing of the Republicans and Democrats given that the trend up to then was in the opposite direction.

Edit: forgot to link to the thing; http://static.davidchouinard.com/congress/

This is how we got the Tea Party

So when you say this, remember that Tea Party Senators overwhelmingly voted with their patrician colleagues.

Like @greyenlightenment, you are wrong. Who do you expect me to believe? the liberal media, or my lying eyes?

How do you divine that voting records == media?

This isn't liberal media, this is simply the fact of voting patterns in the Senate.

my lying eyes?

Jesus this cliché should be banned. Code for 'I don't have to substantiate my views with any evdience'. As a wise man once said, if you cannot measure it, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind. Why should I accept your unevidenced reckonings over the relevant facts?

also, the Tea party was about opposition to Obama's 2009 stimulus and Obamacare, not labor issues or immigration

No it wasn't, it was about opposition to TARP.

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